Justin Cronin - The Twelve

Wilkes seemed taken aback. “Um, anybody in particular?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Jesus, sometimes the man could be thick as a plank. “Don’t you get it? It never mattered. Just pull them out of morning roll.”

Wilkes hesitated. “So you’re saying it should just be, you know, arbitrary. Not people we suspect of having ties to the insurgency, necessarily.”

“Bravo, Fred. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

For a second Wilkes just stood there, staring at Guilder with a bewildered look on his face. Not bewildered: disturbed.

“Yes? Am I talking to myself here?”

“If you say so. I can work up a list and send it down the hill to HR.”

“I don’t care how you do it. Just put it together.” Guilder tossed a hand toward the door. “Now get out of here. And send an attendant to clean up this mess.”

The route to Hollis was more circuitous than Peter had anticipated. The trail had taken them first to a friend of Lore’s, who knew someone who knew someone else; always they seemed to be one step away, only to find that the target had moved.

Their last lead directed them to a Quonset hut where an illegal gambling hall operated. It was after midnight when they found themselves walking down a dark, trash-strewn alley in H-town. Curfew had long passed, but from everywhere around them came little bits of noise—barking voices, the crash of glass, the tinkling of a piano.

“Quite a place,” Peter said.

“You haven’t been here much, have you?” said Michael.

“Not really. Well, never, actually.”

A shadowy figure stepped from a doorway into their path. A woman.

“Oye, mi soldadito. ¿Tienes planes esta noche?”

She moved forward from the shadows. Neither young nor old, her body so thin it was nearly boyish, yet the sensual confidence of her voice and the way she stood—shifting from one foot to the other, her pelvis pushing gently against her tiny skirt—combined with the heavy-lidded declivity of her eyes, as they trolled the length of Peter’s body, to give her an undeniable sexual force.

“¿Cómo te puedo ayudar, Teniente?”

Peter swallowed; his face felt warm. “We’re looking for Cousin’s place.”

The woman smiled a row of silk-stained teeth. “Everybody’s somebody’s cousin. I can be your cousin if you want.” Her eyes drifted to Lore, then Michael. “And what about you, handsome? I can get a friend. Your girlfriend can come if she wants, too. Maybe she’d like to watch.”

Lore gripped Michael by the arm. “He’s not interested.”

“We’re really just looking for someone,” Peter said. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

She gave a dark laugh. “Oh, it’s no trouble. You change your mind, you know where to find me, Teniente .”

They moved along. “Nice fellow,” Michael said.

Peter glanced back down the alley. The woman, or what he’d assumed was a woman, had faded back into the doorway.

“I’ll be damned. Are you sure?”

Michael chuckled ruefully, shaking his head. “You really have to get out more often, hombre.”

Ahead they saw the Quonset hut. Blades of light leaked from the edges of the door, where a pair of beefy men stood guard. The three of them paused in the shelter of an overflowing trash bin.

“Better let me do the talking,” Lore said.

Peter shook his head. “This was my idea. I should be the one to go.”

“In that uniform? Don’t be ridiculous. Stay with Michael. And the two of you, try not to get picked up by any trannies.”

They watched her march up to the door. “Is this such a good idea?” Peter asked quietly.

Michael held up a hand. “Just wait.”

At Lore’s approach the two men tensed, moving closer together to bar her entry. A brief conversation ensued, beyond Peter’s hearing; then she returned.

“Okay, we’re in.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That the two of you just got paid. And you’re drunk. So try to act it.”

The hut was crowded and loud, the space partitioned by large, hexagonal tables where cards were being dealt. Clouds of silk smoke choked the air, consorting with the sour-sweet aroma of mash; there was a still nearby. Half-dressed women—at least Peter took them to be women—were seated on stools at the periphery of the room. The youngest couldn’t have been a day over sixteen, the oldest nearly fifty, haggish in her clownish makeup. More were moving in and out of a curtain at the back, usually in the arm-draped company of a visibly intoxicated man. As Peter understood it, the whole idea of H-town was to overlook a certain amount of illegal vice but to cordon it off within a specific area. He could see the logic—people were people—but staring it in the face was a different matter. He wondered if Michael was right about him. How had he gotten so prim?

“Not go-to they’re playing, is it?” he asked Michael.

“Texas hold ’em, twenty-dollar ante from the looks of it. A bit rich for my blood.” His eyes, like Peter’s, were patrolling the room for Hollis. “We should try to blend in. How much scrip do you have?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I gave it all to Sister Peg.”

Michael sighed. “Of course you did. You’re consistent, I’ll give you that.”

“The two of you,” Lore said. “What a couple of pussies. Watch and learn, my friends.”

She strode up to the closest table and took a chair. From the pocket of her jeans she withdrew a wad of bills, peeled off two, and tossed them into the pot. A third bill produced a shot glass, the contents of which she downed with a toss of her sun-bleached hair. The dealer laid out two cards for each player; then the betting began. For the first four hands Lore seemed to take very little interest in her cards, chatting with the other players, folding quickly with a roll of her eyes. Then, on the fifth, with no discernible change in her demeanor, she began to drive up the bet. The pile on the table grew; Peter guessed there were at least three hundred Austins sitting there for the taking. One by one the others dropped out until just a single player remained, a skinny man with pockmarked cheeks who was wearing a hydro’s jumpsuit. The last card was dealt; stone-faced, Lore put down five more bills. The man shook his head and folded his cards.

“Okay, I’m impressed,” said Peter, as Lore raked in the pot. They were standing off to the side, close enough to watch without seeming to. “How did she do that?”

“She cheats.”

“Really? I don’t see how.”

“It’s pretty simple, actually. The cards are all marked. It’s subtle, but you can figure it out. One player at the table is playing for the house so it always comes out ahead. She used the first few hands to figure out who it was and how to read the cards. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a woman. In here, no one’s taking her seriously. They assume she’ll bet when she has good cards, that she’ll fold when she doesn’t. Three-quarters of the time she’s bluffing.”

“What happens when they realize what she’s doing?”

“They won’t, not right away. She’ll throw a hand or two.”

“And then?”

“Then it’s time to leave.”

A sudden commotion drew their attention to the rear of the room. A dark-haired woman, her dress torn from her shoulders, arms crossed over her exposed breasts, burst through the curtain, screaming incoherently. A second later a man emerged, his pants bunched comically around his ankles. He seemed to be floating a foot off the floor—suspended, Peter realized, by a man gripping him from behind. As the first man hurtled through the air, Peter recognized him; it was the young corporal from Satch’s squad who had driven the transport from Camp Vorhees. The second man, mountainous, the lower half of his face buried in a salt-and-pepper beard, was Hollis.